Post Scorpionis
by This Is Sarcasm
Summary: AU. Five years after the Barons betrayed the Traitor Prince, Scorn and Taken still ravage the Reef with no end in sight. Amidst the turmoil, a Hunter is revived. With his spunky Ghost at his side, a ship to find, a broken hand cannon hanging on his belt, and every living thing out to kill him, Orion already had his work cut out for him. Then ugly old fate comes galumphing in...
1. Chapter 1

_Premise: This is an AU where the Barons betrayed Uldren after he freed them. The problems in the Dreaming City have remained unresolved, and the Barons are still at large. Five years have passed, and the Vanguard have been unable to spare the manpower to help with the problem after loses taken during the Red War, and because the Consensus don't see any reason to help the Reef when they didn't help with the Red Legion(Kind of a Rohan-Gondor relationship, but where Rohan is a jerk and does nothing)._

* * *

It had been. So. _Long_.

Andromeda was a dark, midnight-blue ghost with a spine shell, who had, in attempt to give herself a more unique look, reprogrammed her eye to shine indigo instead of bright blue. She had spent almost seven centuries searching for her Guardian, and it had been so long, she was starting to think she'd never find him.

 _Him_. She knew nothing about him, but she knew it was a 'him'. Just like she felt so certain he'd hate sushi for some reason, and he was right-handed. He had an odd laugh, and they'd take on the galaxy together. In a way, a Ghost knew their Guardian, even before they met. It was through the pre-Link, the call of one genetic code to it's mechanical match in the universe.

The Reef had been... well, forbidden since forever. Well, forbidden since the Queen said she didn't want Ghosts coming in and stealing 'the honored dead' from their graves. But, the queen had been dead for seven years now, Guardian numbers were still low from the Red War, and it was the one place in the system she hadn't searched yet.

Petra Venj could shoot her... if the Scorn didn't find her first, that was.

Ahhh, the Scorn! So lovable! So elegant! So traitor-y that they'd betrayed the guy who freed them! At least, if she were to believe what the last Ghost she'd met had said at face value(and Obsidian always had been a little cross-wired in the circuits). Story was, that a supposedly-dead Prince had come back, iced the Hunter Vanguard(Cayde, or something like that; she hadn't really been back in the city since Fairwind was Vanguard, there was no need), freed a bunch of scary murder-y Scorn hanchos...

Then proceeded to get his brain turned to mush by some guy they called 'The Mindbender'(what kind of super-villain name was that, anyway!?), and thrown into the void. Apparently, his insurance policy hadn't been favorable enough(that was the part she knew Obsidian was being an idiot about).

No body, but a lot of really graphic footage. And ever since then, the Scorn had been running rampant, and the Dreaming City had been letting loose all sorts of nightmare fuel.

Okay, so maybe the Reef was off-limits for a good reason(like, the stay away or you'll die reason), but at this point, she'd been searching for so long, she didn't really care if she lived or died.

So there she was, floating around, humming some nonsense or the other, when she felt it.

Like a tug on her soul.

Still humming, she veered away from the gaggle of Spider's lackeys that she'd been following(and teasing with 'haunted space rocks'-sounding stuff every now and then-she had to do SOMETHING for entertainment), and followed the feeling.

She came upon a rock fall. Sometime, somehow, this had been a victim of some serious explosions. Poor fellow. There was still gear scattered across the area; nothing recognizable, the body was under the rocks, she could sense, but there was a definitely-broken gun sticking out from under one boulder, an old boot, the remains of a heavy pike, and a twisted wreck of some kind of rifle sticking out of the mud.

"Okay, here we go." Andromeda took a few moments to prepare herself, shutting her eye. "Alright, please don't be fat, lesbian, vegan, dumb, or a second coming of Dredgen Yor. I don't need that in my life."

With that, she extended her shell, and started the process.

* * *

He gasped, sucking in air. It _hurt_ , being alive.

One breath in, then let it out...

What was his name, again?

"OH MY GOSH!" his eyes snapped open. That hurt, too(but he was _alive_ ). Everything was blury.

"What!?" he gasped. Talking hurt, like needles scrapping his throat. He felt along his chest, his arms. Was he hurt. "Some'thin wrong?"

"No, you're just so-so-" the disembodied voice struggled for a moment. Something small and dark with a glowing center moved before him in time with the speech. " _You_!"

"I'm so... _me_?" he blinked in confusion. He tried to rub his eyes, but there was a helmet in his way.

"Yeah, I mean look at you! It's amazing!" the shape moved around, and as his vision cleared, he realized it was a small drone, made of polygonal shapes with four little spines on it. It was kind of cute, in a funny sort of way. "I thought I'd never find you and 'poof'! Here you are!"

He decided to try sitting up. Again, it hurt, every muscle in his body felt stiff. He looked at his hands, trying to open and close them, his fingers tingling and moving with slight difficulty.

"Who- _what_ are you?" he asked the drone looking at her. Her indigo eye blinked at him, and her shell spun in a way that made her seem almost excited.

"I'm Andromeda! And I'm a Ghost-more specifically, I'm _your_ Ghost!" she told him happily. "It means you're a Guardian now, and I'm sorry to say, that come along with a whole bunch of bat-shit crazy things that I should probably leave the experts to explain."

He laughed. It felt good, and now that the shock was wearing off, it didn't hurt as-

He cut himself off, frowning. "What... what happened. I... I can't remember my name... or anything..."

"I'm sorry, but... you were dead." he looked at her in shock. "I just chose you. As a Guardian, you posses control of the Light. You can weaponize it, and through the function of your Light, I, as you Ghost, can heal and... reconstruct you, if need be. This is your first time; nobody really remembers their past lives, it's perfectly normal."

He spent a few moments trying to remember. All that came back to him was a sensation like his head being ripped apart, and he quickly decided that his old life must have sucked, or something along those lines. There was also the memory of a voice... but he couldn't quite recall...

"Now, look; I know this is a lot for you to take in, but I need you to bear with me here." Andromeda urged, suddenly becoming quite serious. "This is Scorn territory. We're in the asteroid belt. We need to find a ship and get back to earth ASAP, or we're like, totally dead."

All these things rang as familiar for some reason. Maybe he still retained base information of his past life? Stuff like 'don't try to breath underwater' and 'don't lick poison dart frogs'.

What the heck was poison dart frog, anyway?

"Okay, say no more!" He tried to jump to his feet, and nearly fell over.

"Take it easy! Get your bearings and get used to being alive first." Andromeda advised as he caught himself. He took a deep breath, and tried standing again. His legs shook, but held up, and he used a nearby rock to steady himself. At full height, he decided he was actually quite tall. His body was covered in some plain, somewhat weak-looking field weave that Andromeda had constructed in black so as to help him blend in with the surroundings more.

He looked up. There were fields of debris, and rock dust had turned all visible sky to purple. He frowned.

"I can't see the stars." Why was that even significant?

"Trying to use them?" his Ghost asked. Use the stars to find your way; of course _, that_ was why it mattered!

"I... I guess so." with a furrowed brow, he looked at her. "What's my name?"

"I don't know." her shell moved in what could have been a shrug. "You can pick one in your own time."

"I can't just run around without a name." he looked back up again. The names of constellations came floating back to him from his past life, like blood bleeding through a bandage. He picked one and ran with it. It was catchy, flashy, and charming. Perfect. "I'll just go with Orion."

"Just like that?" she asked skeptically. "You know once you register with the Vanguard, you can't change that right?"

"Why would I ever change it for!?" he brought one hand to his heart in mock hurt. "It's a handsome name that properly conveys how amazing I am!"

"You haven't known yourself for five minutes! And for all you know, you could be hideously scarred under that helmet!"

"I bet I'm amazing, and that I'm super hot under this helmet."

"YES! I GOT A HUNTER! WHOOOOOO!" Andromeda suddenly broke out in a happy, zipping flight pattern. "Thank the light! For a few moments I was worried you're be a Warlock-like, I'd still be glad I found you and all, but bleh, science is so boring."

"What's a Hunter, and how can you tell I'm one?" he asked, confused by the sudden outburst.

"Hunters are the way finders, scouts, and general go-toos of the Guardians. That delicious display of ego was totally in-line with typical Hunter personality. I had a feeling before, that you'd be one. But I'm glad to know I was right... Orion."

"See, told you it sounds good." it sounded right. _Okay... my name is Orion, I'm a maybe-awesome super hot Hunter or something like that, and I have to escape an asteroid field before I die because of..._

"Um... what are Scorn?" he asked. At that moment, an inhuman howl broke across the wind.

"Unless you want to find out, we should run or hide. Or do both. Yeah, both would be great." Andromeda said. He jumped when she disappeared. Then, her voice came again, but through his earpiece. " _Don't worry, I'm still with you. This is called 'phasing'; I can condense my physical form into a dimensional pocket, but my personality data stays in a circuit in your helmet_."

"Okay. Good to know." He didn't fancy being alone out here. Or alone in general. Alone sounded... well, lonely. He looked around for some kind of weapon; if those Scorn things caught him, he didn't want to be unarmed. There was a long, twisted piece of railing sticking out of the ground. He pulled it out of the mud with little difficulty. The point was sharp; it was better than nothing.

He took one last look at where he'd been... revived. He figured he must have been crushed in some sort of rock fall, by the looks of it. He blinked when he noticed something sticking out of one of the rocks; it was a gun. Quickly, he used the pole to levy the boulder it was trapped under, and freed it from it's dirt prison. It was a hand cannon, and when he brushed more dirt off it, he could make out some faint symbols. He squinted.

Two white lines on the barrel, maybe... and an ace on the grip.

 _"That thing doesn't work anymore._ " Andromeda told him, stating the obvious.

"I know. But it's mine... or, well, it belonged to past me. I'm sure he wouldn't mind me taking his stuff. Besides... it's all I got. Aside from you, I mean." he said. He didn't know for sure this gun had been his, but there was a high chance. If so, it was his only link to a life he didn't remember, a token of a forgotten time, and he wanted to take it with him.

So, with nothing but his Ghost, a sharp stick, and an old, broken gun, Orion the (probably)Hunter set out across the most lawless place in the system.

* * *

 _Just a plot bunny that wouldn't stay quiet while I was writing Losing Time. May or may not continue._

 _That being said, let me know what you think._

 _Fare Thee Well!_


	2. Chapter 2

Orion didn't know much about sneaking around, but he thought he might be doing a good job of it right now.

Key word being 'thought'.

He stuck his head out into the open, looking around the rocky, craggy, 'hard to see enemies in' waste. There was no movement that he could see. He ducked back behind the rocks, took a deep breath, and hauled himself over them and into the open. He looked around, feeling hair stand up on the back of his neck even beneath his only _sound_ he could hear was wind blowing, sending dust across the asteroid. Patches of grass grew here and there, none of it long enough to make even a whisper of sound. _Addy? Andromeda?_

"'Addy'?" she questioned with amusement, popping up in front of him.

"Eh, it sounded right. You don't mind, do you?" He rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed. Andromeda spun happily.

"I love it! I've always wanted a nickname!" Orion felt a grin split his face, and something swelled in his chest.

"Where do you think we should go, exactly?"

"Just keep heading north, but again; _be careful_. There are scorn crawling all over the place."

"Gotcha." He nodded, standing at full height, and striding in the direction she'd drifted in. "So what's north?"

"Awoken village. really well-hidden, full of pirates and other _wonderful_ individuals, but it's the closest thing to civilization on this particular rock." She informed him, drifting around to his other side as they walked, before disappearing in a flash of particles. _"When we get there, just keep your head down, and you should be fine. We'll find a way to earth from there."_

"'Kay. And the scorn? What are they?" he felt increasingly uneasy out in the open. There were craggs, cracks, and craters he could hide in just about a dozen meters away.

 _"Mutated Fallen. Dead, mutated by dark-laced ether, and brought back as mindless, re-animated monsters. Basically? Way less elegant, butt-ugly twisted version of_ Guardians." This made him come to a stop, felling all the blood drain from his face. Sensing where his mind was going, his Ghost quickly picked back up. _"_ _Except they don't have powers. And you CAN kill them. And they're just plain GROSS, like, oh my GOSH they are so disgusting. And stupid. All most know how to do is drool and tear people apart."_

"Joy." He grimaced. He picked his way down into a crater. "So, what's on earth?"

 _"The Vanguard; Guardian Command. The Last Safe City. There are three Guardian classes-Hunter, Warlock, Titan-each with their own leader, the Vanguard. Their duty is to oversee the protection of the Last Safe City of Humanity, and, by proxy, the Traveler, which is basically the overpowered terraforming AI that made me, the other Ghosts, and gave you all these weird powers. "_ Andromeda explained. _"It's also the source of your powers, the 'Light' I mentioned earlier. Traveler goes, me and your powers go, basically."_

"Okay. So I have to go there to what? Sign up?" he asked, peaking over the edge of the crater before leaving it, making a be-line for a crack nearby.

 _"Basically. They'll gear you up, train you, teach you how to control your powers. Pretty much all basic stuff, really. And when they think you're ready, they'll start sending us on missions. Or we could just go off into the wild and explore; that's what most Hunters do."_

"Cool." he stated, running one hand along the rock. His metal pole was making for quite the walking stick.

"Oh!" Andromeda phased into existence. "That reminds me! There's something I got for you, a while back. Well, a couple somethings, because I wasn't 100% sure you were a Hunter, so I got a Mark and Bond, too, but, hold out you hands!"

He obliged, and, practically bouncing in the air with excitement, Andromeda materialized something into them. A long swath of fabric, dark russet, with light brown patters on it. It was a cloak. The weave was a fine material, and it felt incredibly light despite it's length. He felt a lump form in his throat for some reason.

"Traditionally, Hunters wear cloaks. It's a symbol of who they are, their individual personalities. The triple arrow on the hood of this, here, is the Hunter insignia. I saw it, ant the other class symbols, and I felt like I couldn't meet you without having _something_ for you." his Ghost explained. "Do... do you... like it?"

"I... I love it. Thank you." he set his pole to lean against a rocky wall, and pulled the cloak close to his chest. This was his. A _gift_ , for _him_. His Ghost had gotten him a gift, when she didn't even know him yet. Someone who hadn't ever met him had cared to the point of getting _him_ a _gift_ , even though they didn't know if they would ever meet him or not. His eyes watered. _Damn, I'm emotional._ Stupid emotions.

"Uh, how do I get it on?"

Andromeda instructed him, and the light weight of the cloak on his shoulders felt so right, he didn't think he would ever take it off again. They continued on in silence, but the grin never left his face.

* * *

Three days later saw his first violent encounter with another living being.

Andromeda was telling a joke when it started; a low rumble in the distance, quickly growing louder, closer, until he realized what it was. Engines. Coming their way. At first he'd been hopeful. Then a giant, ugly monster on a smoking vehicle crested the nearby crater, followed by smaller creatures of similar ugliness.

"Son of a witch!" Andromeda cursed, vanishing. _"Run!"_

She didn't have to tell him twice. He booked it for the nearest rock, adjusting his grip on his stick in case he had to use it. Before he could make it, the roar of engines was right on him, and agony burst through his bones, a vibration of pure pain, followed by more _pain_ , and then all was nothingness.

Then; a sensation of warmth, like he'd been soaked in sunlight. It rushed through him, like blood in his veins, and it was so bright and so comforting, and he thought he recognized Andromeda's voice in it somewhere, and-

He was awake, he could breath, his eyes could open, and Andromeda was urging him to _get up_ as she disappeared in a burst of sparks, and he realized what had happened. "Did I just... die?"

 _"Yes, now get ready!"_ she warned him. _"She's coming back around, and there's one behind; don't let them circle you!"_

The lead ugly was in fact turning around, and when he turned himself, he saw the other one she had mentioned. A crazy idea popped into his head, as it came right at him.

"I have a plan!" he told her. He could hear all the scorn cackling and taunting him, as he grabbed his stick and jumped to his feet. _I'm SO insane..._

He jumped the rider as the little ugly drove past him, and somehow managed to jam the metal stick through it's shoulders. _OW!_ Something sick, not quite blood, but not quite ether, spilt on him, and he found himself being dragged halfway off the vehicle as it continued. The driver let out a feral snarl, and tried to push him off.

His foot caught a rock, and he managed to push the ugly, snarling, sack of evil off. He scrambled to get in the seat and seize control.

 _"That was your plan!?"_

"Just tell me how to drive this thing!" He pulled something that looked like a clutch, but it didn't work. The back pedals were clunky and not built for his feet, and the bike pitched and jerked like a mad bull.

 _"Gimme a second!"_ the rest of the ugly scorn gang had noticed, and were making to circle him. _Come on, come on, come on, come on..._

It was too late, he was about to die again, and maybe this time they would grab Andromeda, too. _ADDY!_

 _"Go, go, go!"_ she yelled in his mind. He put the pedals to the metal, and the machine took off with a jerk. His stomach flipped. A noxious odor was beginning to seep into his helmet from the outside. _"We got help incoming; wandering Guardian just over the crater to your ten O'clock. She says to prep for another rez."_

"Got it!" For the first time since he woke up, he felt relief. Everything was going to be fine... he hoped. Who was he kidding? Two against how many mounted opponents, exactly?

He turned for the crater regardless. The sudden dip nearly pitched him over the edge. He could feel his hair clinging to one side of his face under his helmet. His helmet really smelled like sweat, like, _bad_ , be he wasn't sure about the air on this rock and he'd been too nervous to ask Andromeda and _wow_ , it was getting hard to breath in here-

He crested the other end of the crater, and all he saw was a split second of dark, swirling, energy, before the nothingness came again. It lasted a bit longer than last time, but like before, there was a rush of warmth and light and he could breath again. Kind of.

He tore the helmet off. "Ugh, this thing smells!" Andromeda giggled.

"Oh, light... your _hair_..."

Strands of black fell over one side of his face, and he felt the top of his head for the literal first time. He felt his face split with the horror as he registered what he felt. "No! I was _emo_!?"

Andromeda broke into cackling laughter as he realized they were sitting in the middle of a burning wreck; their bike, the gangs bikes, and all their bodies.

"You should be more careful, young Guardian." a voice behind him chided. "But you made eliminating the Rider much easier for me."

He jumped to his feet and whirled around. It was a woman, surrounded by the wreckage, in regal purple robes and a helmet as black as a singularity. A bracelet on her left bicep projected some kind of hologram, and there was a circular pendant around her neck.

"Rider? Don't you mean _riders_? Like, there were a _lot_ of them?" he questioned. He raised a brow when all she did was tense up, unresponsive. "Er, like... at least eight of them...I think... but I didn't really have time to-"

"Who are you?" she snapped, startling him.

"Oh, sorry." He tossed the helmet over his back and strode up to her, smiling and extending his hand even as she took one step backwards. "I'm Orion, this is Andromeda. Addy for short."

* * *

 _Sooooooooooooo... this is awkward. Spent a long time hitting my head aainst a brick wall when we got THAT cutscene, I was all like "I THOUGHT MY IDEA WAS ORIGINAL NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO BUNGIE WHYYYYYYYYY!"._

 _Then I was all like "Should I go canon and replace Andromeda with Pulled Pork(who is an always will be adorable)?" And I was having a creative slup over the last year, too, so that didn't help. No idea when the next chapter will be for any of my fics, but I've decided to take it slow with just this one for now._

 _Questoris: Nope, one Ghost, one Guardian._

 _BlackDragon829: Glad to hear it!_

 _jsmulligan: Actually, it's one of her quirks. She's been out of touch for a while. All she's ever been interested in is finding her Guardian, so she's not really up to speed on all things, let alone all this gender stuff. Her 'guidance' is going to get Orion into trouble a few times, lets just say that._

 _BraveSeeker3: Depends on who you thought it was, lol._

 _Soooooo... yeah. Wild ride this year. This year kind of sucked for real life. Kinda boring in D2 as well, up till recently. Welp, I'm off to fangirl over new lore!_

 _Fare Thee Well!_


End file.
